


paradise, untitled

by tigerbox



Category: The Maze Runner (Movies), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 03:31:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13650537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerbox/pseuds/tigerbox
Summary: thomas finds a house with minho, teresa and newt. this is his version of survival.





	paradise, untitled

**Author's Note:**

> an alternate ending to the death cure;; because that ending will never satisfy me!!!

They’ve been running so long; Thomas can feel his shin splints burning his legs open. He’s not sure what time it is, nor how long they’ve been on the run for - it seems like centuries with no sun or moon to assess time by. No one speaks either, it’s just the sound of hurling panting surrounding him - Minho and Teresa to his left, Newt, five paces behind on his right. If they were to ask what direction they were running in, none of them would be able to answer. They were just running.

It’d be pussy to ask for a break, and at times Thomas slows his pace to let the others catch up - Minho could outrun him he knows, but maybe not Theresa or Newt - but still no one complains. They run like this for hours on end, until the hours turn into days - the only thing running through his mind is the taste of water, for no matter how hard he tries, Thomas cannot remember what it didn’t feel like to be consistently parched.

 

It figures it’d be Newt the one to see it, the slowest of them all, but his limp didn’t hinder his vision from seeing what the others couldn’t - a block of light in all the darkness of the open air.

“Thomas, stop. Look.” Rather than the view though, what takes Thomas aback is the sound of Newt’s dry, raspy voice hitting the solemn air - he’d forgotten what it was like to hear actual words out loud.

It’s a house in isolation, a house if you could call it that; an old dilapidated building with broken windows and a makeshift veranda in the middle of bloody nowhere. In the old world, Thomas knows the pinpoint of where they’d been running to could be anywhere between Kentucky to Nebraska - but here, in this world they live in - it’s the middle of nothing.

They enter it, hesitant, scared of what they might find.

 

 

“Are we fucking hallucinating?” Minho says when he takes his first step inside, his lifeless voice ricocheting off the hollow walls. Maybe it used to be an old workers building, or a fake WICKD setup, but whatever it is, it looks like a home...old musty couch in one room, cracked glasses and plates in another - an actual kitchen.

But the best thing is the pipes. Teresa runs to the sink, doesn’t falter to turn the faucet on - and although the water doesn’t look like any distinguishable color - it runs, works. She takes one of the dusted up glasses and pours herself a glass, and then another one, then another one. By the end, her chin is dribbling with the remnants of water, and then her shirt - but she doesn’t care. She’s still alive. And then the boys all do it too.

 

 

 

Later, after they all assess the place, the rooms upstairs, and if the bathrooms are even functional, Thomas looks over the place with an unsettling feeling, knowing the looks the others give him means this was going to be something more permanent.

“What if someone comes back for it? The place I mean.” no one answers. Thomas says it in mere afterthought anyway. This was going to be home.

The favorite place of the house is the kitchen easily. They spend most of their time there, trying to remember how an actual kitchen works - not some pitched creation in the glades. Thomas tries not to question the validity of it all, for instance, where was the electricity stemming from and all that, because the others hardly cared when they had warm toast and coffee every morning, and baked beans every night to eat. Teresa lights candles outside, taking the grounds of whatever they eat, planting seeds in what she deems to be living soil - determination to get them a sustainable farm to eat from next whenever they run out of the canned stuff still living in the cupboards. The boys don’t sweat it though - at least for now, they could eat a shoe if their canine teeth allowed it.

Surprisingly, it’s Newt who favors cooking the most. He’s no Frypan, with slobs of mash to serve, but his canned beans and spam recipes fill them well - they even laugh sometimes, eating together at the table full of soot, laughing over dinner.

Like an actual family.

 

 

Everyone has their roles. Teresa and her garden, Newt in the kitchen, Minho who takes on the dual role of sleeping the most but also the handyman; adjusting the little fixtures around the house trying to make it functional. It sort of leaves Thomas a little on edge on how useless he is when they aren’t running towards anything anymore, just staying stagnant. He becomes a leader, without anything to lead.

So he cleans. It’s therapeutic almost, the patterns of trying to get rid of all the dirt in the place. It’s always dark outside, but when he cleans the windows he tries to get a smudge of light indoors, wiping over the stained glasses multiple times, getting a crack of faded light seeping through. He can see Teresa haunched on her knees outside, painstakingly trying to take care of tomato seeds from a wilted plant, giving it one hundred percent of her care.

There’s always two questions rising in his head when he cleans around the house: just until when would they be safe hiding here, and just until when would they run out of clean water to live off on. But as he twirls his rag around the floors slowly removing the years of dirt and abandonment, he stops questioning everything so much to focus on the present. If the others weren’t asking these questions, why should he?

 

 

 

It’s PSTD that they all suffer from and even though there’s three rooms upstairs, it’s not a shock that they all sleep in one room at first, in their own corners - close enough to each other that they can keep an eye out for intrusions but still sleep soundlessly. It’s at night that Thomas feels the most safe, oddly enough - when he can hear the breathing of Newt, Teresa and Minho surrounding him - as if they’d never left his side like in the Glades. He imagines the others in his sleep also there; Alby, Chuck, Frypan, hell, even Gally if he was in a deep sleep enough.

Everyone safe, just there quietly, enjoying each other’s company.

“Do you ever dream about them?” he asks Newt once when they’re just resting on the sofa, doing much of nothing. The thing about Newt is, Thomas doesn’t even have to say their names - Newt just always knows what Thomas is thinking before Thomas could even say it.

“All the time, mate.”

“Me too.”

It goes like this for the first few days. And much like when they were running, Thomas loses track of time, unsure if it’s been hours or days since they’ve been here, in this version of home.

 

 

 

“What do you think it’s like outside? Out there, in the world?” he asks Newt, on occasion, wondering what’d it be like if they were still running.

“I don’t know, really. Probably hell.”

 

 

Thomas has nightmares too, of the past. Hell. WICKD. Grievers. Desert. Cranks. The Glades. They all do. They just don’t talk about it. Sometimes, he hears her. Teresa, murmuring to herself in her sleep, inaudible whispers, eyebrows crossing in bouts of anxiousness. Newt and Minho see it too, let her awaken them in the middle of the night, but they don’t say anything either.

Thomas doesn’t know why he does it, but he goes to her side one night, tossing an arm over her, cradling her to his side, whispering in her ear until she stops shaking. She responds too, eventually stopping her shivering, her silent tears - it’s like this, in this situation Thomas feels like everything could be okay. And soon, they spend every night like this.

 

 

Minho gives him a wiry look the first night Thomas and Teresa make their way to one of the other bedrooms, fingers clasped, the room untouched by any of them except for when Thomas cleans it. Minho’s look is one of both judgement and amusement, and Thomas feels sheepish when he sees it, but he doesn’t care. They’d been through enough - all the male testerone of the Glades, the endless on the run from WICKD with nowhere to release all that pent up frustration, it’d only made sense for Thomas and Teresa to finally be able to lean on each other, do something with all their sexual tension.

Fuck.

‘ _Fuck_ ,’ is what Thomas thinks the first time they kiss, nervously, timid almost, because Thomas knows that Minho and Newt are in the room right beside, snickering and listening. He cowardly lets Teresa take the reigns, follows her guide as she presses her lips against his, maneuvers their faces together, a deep kiss taking hold. They’d kiss once before, and Thomas would never forget it - but this was much different. So intimate, not really much else to keep them apart this time, and when Theresa breaks the kiss, bending down so that her knees squeak on the floorboards, lowering Thomas’ pants, silently opening her mouth around him, Thomas feels his whole body vibrate and maybe the whole world around him too.

“Fuck,” he says, and this time it’s out loud.

It’s like this, and the times that follow after. The mischievous smiles Newt and Minho give Thomas the mornings after they hear all that raucous lovemaking, never really speaking of it. Breakfasts become everyone’s favorite meal. Thomas holds Teresa’s hands underneath the table, always amazed at how unfazed she is by the whole ordeal, as if this was how it was meant to be all along.

There’s something Thomas loves about that.

 

“He can’t really be that good at fucking you, is he?” Newt says once, after a particularly boring game of charades in the living room. The question is directed at Teresa, but it’s Thomas’ ears that are flushing. Something so passé about the way Newt says it, as if he’s only mildly curious about the response.

Again, Teresa doesn’t seem phased. She sits across from Thomas, cross legged on the floor, and when she looks at him momentarily before answering Newt, Thomas can feel his heart skip a beat.

“He’s alright.”

Minho snorts instantly, losing his place in the game, and then they all laugh because snorting is never not funny.

“Yeah, alright, but sometimes when you scream, you scream bloody murder Teresa. It’s a bit baffling is all,” Newt eventually continues, lolling his head back in his chair.

“It’s called an orgasm, Newt. You would know if you’d ever have one.”

“Right.”

Again, Minho is snickering. Thomas feels himself do that out of body experience thing - he’s the one that makes Teresa orgasm every night and yet he feels so out of place here. Suddenly, Minho is standing up and making his way towards Newt’s chair.

“Well, Newt. Who’s gonna do the honors? You or I?”

“What do you mean mate?”

“Who’s going to fuck whose brains out here?”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

“Oh, for pete’s sake,” Teresa is saying, as Thomas just watches as she gets up, uncrossing her legs and shoving Minho by the shirt. “Here.”

And then she’s kissing Minho, in front of Thomas, and he’s not feeling so special anymore, watching as Minho’s eyes close in shock, his body going from stiff to slowly responsive as he starts kissing her back, hunching down to meet her level, his big lips fully puckered up. Newt exchanges a glance from below to Thomas, eyebrows raised.

It’s the moonshine. Boredom and moonshine could fuck with anybody, Thomas reasons. And still, he’s not jealous, not jealous when the kiss breaks, and then Teresa looks back at him, doing a little dance to no music. Her eyelids are hooded, sleepy almost and she gives a pursed smile.

This was so much better than being trapped by WICKD.

Knowing she’s got his attention, she takes her attention away from Minho, still caught in a daze by the kiss, and bends over until she’s sitting on Newt’s lap, one of his legs immediately crouching over, surprised, the other one, his limp leg, daringly straight on the floor. She does a little shimmy, to no song, just her own hums, and Thomas feels himself laughing despite himself, feeling warm all over. Minho’s laughing too, because it’s just so funny what they do to amuse themselves now, with nothing but time, and Newt - the master of no reaction reacting a bit unexpectedly when there's a hand reaching hand down fiddling with his zipper, and placing a kiss square on the lips.

“Well. I think it’s safe to say we all have a new favorite hobby,” Minho says as he takes the seat next to Thomas wrapping an arm around his neck, and they watch the scene unfold, Teresa forcefully kissing Newt until he too, responds back, lifting himself a little in his seat to the motions of her hands inside his pants.

“Well, fuck me,” he says after a while, when Teresa gets bored of kissing him and giving him a handjob, waltzing to the other side of the room, collapsing on Thomas. He wonders if he’s supposed to be ashamed of whatever just transpired, or raging almost, but he’s not. Teresa’s nuzzling herself into his neck and he wraps his arms around her, this time being the one to hum a tune out of sync.

“That was hot,” Minho concludes. Thomas doesn’t need to look down to know that Minho’s sporting a boner between his legs, he could practically feel it from all the heat in the room.

“We could live like this forever,” Teresa says, almost dreamily into Thomas’ neck. “Just here, forever.”

“I’d still like to know what the hype over the screaming is about,” Newt is saying, abandoned on the other side of the room, away from the others. “So if you don’t mind.”

He makes his way to the sofa where the other three are, carelessly bending over Teresa, and taking Thomas by surprise, plants a big wet one on his mouth, hungry for something more. It takes Thomas aback, this kiss, but he reciprocates slowly. It feels different than when Theresa kisses him, more inquisitive, but not in a bad way, and he kisses Newt back, all too aware that Minho and Theresa are closely watching. When Newt finally pulls away, sauntering back to his chair with that signature gimp, he chuckles a little, pulling out a card for the next round of charades.

“Well that was fun wasn’t it? Who’s ready for the next category? Animals of the yesteryear.”

 

 

 

Thomas might’ve blamed the moonshine that night, but the nights that follow he can’t. On warm nights, it becomes a regular occurence, letting Minho and Newt watch him and Teresa in their room. He pretends he doesn’t see it, pretends he doesn’t hear the door opening slightly ajar, as Teresa is sprawled on top of him, marvelous breasts moving ferociously as he fucks her in the dim moonlight. They’re there, behind them, just watching in silence as Thomas penetrates Teresa, thrusting upwards in motion, and they’re still there when they move positions, Thomas now on top, fucking her from behind.

It’s voyeuristic, he knows, and Thomas sort of feels like an animal on display at the zoo as Newt and Minho watch, fondling each other’s dicks, making each other drip with come between their pants as they watch the two lovers on the floor humping each other endlessly until Theresa is crying from Thomas’ erratic hard thrusts - for no matter how many nights they do this, he can never control himself from pounding into her too hard.

Some nights, after he’s pounded into Theresa, and she’s overtaken with the taste of his come in her mouth, or on any discernible location of bare skin, Thomas allows Newt and Minho to come on her too, over her stomach, after their bouts of masterbation end. She looks the most beautiful like this, so vulnerable and wanton, so satisfied to be so needed.

He loves her he thinks, when he’s fucking her into the ground, ignoring the splinters from the wood below, the bruises scraping on their knees when their slapping flesh hits the floor; he truly loves her, truly loves the embodiment of being with her.

 

 

“I’m not a good girl,” she tells him once, when the others are napping in the middle of the day. They’re in the yard, and he’s helping her with her pinto bean collection and she’s giving him a look of malice. Vaguely, he recollects the version of Teresa from before, from those months when they’d been separated and when she’d be on WICKD’s side, the enemy of Minho, Newt and anything good.

“Sometimes I think of running away from here. And leaving you all behind.”

Thomas continues to plant the seeds, knowing she probably means it. But she’d never do it, that’s for sure. Because when Thomas makes love to Teresa and she’s crying in his ears, procreating scratches on his ass, legs curled around his bareback, those are the moments when he knows she’s feeling something the most. She’d never leave that. So he kisses her instead, planting a soft one on her lips, simultaneously planting something growing in the earth below.

“I know.”

 

 

 

Eventually, when they get bored enough, Teresa invites Newt and Minho to have sex with them. It’s not a surprise to Thomas, he expects it to happen - and although his personal trysts with Teresa are his favorite, it’s hard not to enjoy the feel of being sandwiched between Minho on top of him and Teresa below, Newt somewhere in between, his warm dick being laborly loved in Thomas’ grasp.

He could live like this forever, Thomas thinks. The four of them, his family, forever and tangible, something concrete.

 

 

 

 

And then the sun rises.

 

 

 

 

It’s Minho’s voice he hears, and the feel of sun rays basking around him.

“Thomas. Please. Wake up. It’s been five days.”

When he opens his eyes, it’s Minho who is there, hovering over him like a concerned parent, eyes open wide, arms shaking him a little too hard. His chest hurts, filled with an explicable soreness.

 _Oh, yeah_ \- Thomas thinks, realizing he’d been shot. And the sun.

 _Oh yeah_ , Thomas thinks, again. It’d been so long since he felt the sun, the magnitude of sunshine above him.

He sits up, toes crushing into something warm and serene. The feel of sand.

 _Oh yeah_ , Thomas thinks again, before settling into a sad reality. His eyes meet Minho’s. They aren’t in the house anymore. Because they’re the ones who survived - they’re on the island. With the others. Survivors. But not Newt or Teresa. Thomas looks down. Not only is there the soreness on his chest of where’d he been shot, but there’s also a sweltering pool of heat from below, where’d he been endlessly dreaming about it - that idyllic oasis of living with Teresa, Minho and Newt - his version of paradise. He takes in his surroundings, the water, the sand, everyone looking happy living on the beach.

Maybe this was paradise, but it wasn’t his.

“I can help you with that if you want, brother,” Minho’s pointing a taunting finger down below at Thomas’ crotch, raising his eyebrows in good authority. Instead, Thomas flips Minho off seeing Aris, Brenda, Jorge in the distance. This was his family now, he slowly lets it sink in. With no Teresa or Newt in sight. In despair, he throws his head down into his hands.

“Fuck,” he resolves, and then Minho is bending down, placing hands around him, taking him into a comforting hug. At least he gets it too.

“Yeah, I know.”

 

 

 

Thomas eventually gets used to it, this actual version of reality. He’s not running anymore at least, because there’s still nowhere to run to. Sometimes, Minho comes to visit him in his tent, and holds him until he falls asleep. Thomas lets him, appreciates it.

On nights like those it is where he can remember them the most.


End file.
